county [Fr., comté,=domain of a count], division of local government in the United States, Great Britain, and many Commonwealth countries. The county developed in England from the shire, a unit of local government that originated in the Saxon settlements of the 5th cent. By the 11th cent. the shire system was fully established throughout most of England, with each shire being ruled by a shire-reeve, or sheriff, appointed by the crown. By the 14th cent. the office of justice of the peace had developed; in each county a court of three or four justices, also appointed by the king, assisted the sheriff in the administration of local affairs. With the passage of the Local Government Act of 1888, power passed from the king's appointed officials to the newly created county councils, elected by local residents. The county system of government was adopted in most of the nations settled by the British.

In the United States there are some 3,100 counties (254 in Texas alone); most are rural or suburban, but except where, as in Virginia, a city may be independent (not part of a county), every part of a state is also part of a county. Some cities, like New York (where the five boroughs are also counties) comprise more than one county. Louisiana, influenced by the French, has instead parishes, which are essentially similar to counties; Alaska has boroughs. The major functions of county government in the United States include law enforcement, the recording of deeds and other documents, and the provision and maintenance of public works such as roads and parks. Some states, though, notably Connecticut, have abolished almost all county governmental functions.

Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education, case decided in 1971 by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court held that the constitutional mandate (see Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans.) to desegregate public schools did not require all schools in a district to reflect the district's racial composition, but that the existence of all-white or all-black schools must be shown not to result from segregation policies. The Court added that because bus transportation had traditionally been employed by school systems, busing could be used in efforts to correct racial imbalances.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Calif. The original museum opened in 1913. Among its important patrons was William Randolph Hearst, whose enormous collection brought the museum major status among the country's art houses. The museum's collections include European, Asian, and American painting, sculpture, and the decorative arts. It also has an extensive collection of mosaics. The museum buildings on Wilshire Boulevard (1965) were designed by W. L. Pereira and Associates and renovated and extended by Hardy Holtzman Pfeiffer Associates (1986). In 2008 a new addition to the museum, the Broad Contemporary Art Museum, opened to the public. Designed by Renzo Piano and largely lit by natural light, it showcases works of art from the mid-20th cent. to the present.

King's County, Republic of Ireland: see Offaly.

American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), largest union of public employees in the United States. It began as a number of separate locals organized by a group of Wisconsin state employees in the early 1930s. By 1935 there were 30 locals that became a separate department within the American Federation of Government Employees. In 1936, AFSCME received its charter. By 1955, at the time of the AFL-CIO merger, the union had 100,000 members. The following year it merged with the 30,000-member Government and Civil Employees Organizing Committee. As of 1989, the union had over 1,090,000 members, excluding the 58,000 member Hospital and Health Care Employees Union which, as of 1989, became a member of both AFSCME and the Service Employees Union (SEIU).